Bulgaria

Family Life and Modern Society

Throughout the era of postwar communist modernization, family
life remained one of the most important values in Bulgarian
society. In a 1977 sociological survey, 95 percent of women
responded that "one can live a full life only if one has a family."
From the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s, the
marriage rate in Bulgaria was stable at close to 10 percent per
year. The rate was slightly higher just after the two world wars.
The rate fell beginning in 1980, however, reaching 7 percent in
1989. Slightly more couples married in the cities than in the
villages, a natural development considering the ageing of the
village population. Most women married between the ages of eighteen
and twenty-five, most men between twenty and twenty-five. Village
men and less educated city men typically married before they were
twenty. The first men to marry often were those who had completed
their military service, did not plan further education, and could
support themselves financially
(see Recruitment and Service Obligations
, ch. 5;
Education
, this ch.). Those who continued their
education often delayed marriage until their late twenties. In
choosing their spouses, the less educated and those from more
traditional regions of Bulgaria sought qualities most highly valued
in traditional society: love of hard work, modesty, and good
character. Among the educated classes, values such as personal
respect, commonality of interests, and education were more often
predominant in the choice of a spouse.

Until 1944 divorce was quite rare in Bulgaria, and great stigma
was attached to all individuals who had divorced. After 1944 the
divorce rate rose steadily until 1983, when it reached 16.3
percent. Between 1983 and 1986, however, the rate fell to 11.2
percent. In the 1980s, the divorce rate in the cities was more than
twice that in the villages, in part because the village population
was older. The divorce rate was especially high for couples married
five years or less; that group accounted for 44 percent of all
divorces. In 1991 the rate was increasing, however, for those
married longer than five years.

Concerned about Bulgaria's low birth rate, the government
issued new restrictions on divorce in its 1985 Family Code. The fee
to apply for a divorce was more than three months' average salary,
and every application for a divorce required an investigation. The
grounds most often listed in a divorce application were infidelity,
habitual drunkenness, and incompatibility.

In 1991 the average Bulgarian family included four people.
Families of two to five people were common, whereas families of six
or more were rare. In the larger families, moreover, the additional
members usually included one or two of the couple's parents. In
1980 extended families spanning three or even four generations made
up 17 percent of all households, indicating the persistence of the
extended family tradition. Although the tradition was more
prevalent in the villages of western and southern Bulgaria than in
the cities, many urban newlyweds lived with their parents because
they could not afford or obtain separate apartments.

Socialist Bulgaria greatly emphasized the emancipation of
women. The 1971 constitution expressly stated that "all citizens of
the People's Republic of Bulgaria are equal before the law, and no
privileges or limitations of rights based on national, religious,
sex, race, or educational differences are permitted" and that
"women and men in the People's Republic of Bulgaria have the same
rights." Bulgaria's Family Code also affirmed equal rights for men
and women.

In 1988 Bulgaria's work force included an almost equal number
of men (50.1 percent) and women (49.9 percent). By 1984 nearly 70
percent of working women surveyed said that they could not imagine
life without their professional work, even if they did not need the
pay. Only 9 percent of the women preferred being housewives.
However, most men surveyed in 1988 cited economics as the reason
for their wives to work, asserting that the wives should give up
their work if they were needed at home.

Household chores remained primarily the responsibility of
women, including most working wives. In 1990 the average working
woman spent eight and one-half hours at her job and over four and
one-half hours doing housework: cooking, washing dishes, washing
clothes, ironing, mending, and tending the children. In many
households, such tasks were still considered "women's work," to
which husbands contributed little.

In their social planning, Bulgarian legislators usually viewed
their country's women mainly as mothers, not as workers. Besides
the laws passed in an effort to increase the country's birth rate,
legislators passed laws giving certain privileges to women in the
workplace, often keeping their reproductive capability in mind.
Women were prohibited by law from doing heavy work or work which
would adversely affect their health or their capacities as mothers.
The list of prohibited jobs changed constantly, and women sought
such jobs because they generally offered better pay and benefits.
Depending on the type of work, women could retire after fifteen or
twenty years, or after reaching age forty-five, fifty, or fiftyfive . Women who had raised five or more children could retire after
fifteen years of work, regardless of their age or type of work. Men
were generally offered retirement after working twenty-five years
or reaching age fifty, fifty-five, or sixty. Some jobs were
restricted to women unless no women were available. Without
exception these were low-skill, low-paying jobs such as archivist,
elevator operator, ticket seller, coat checker, and bookkeeper.
Other jobs, such as secretary, stenographer, librarian, cashier,
and cleaning person were considered "appropriate for women." Men in
the workplace often expressed resentment of women in positions of
authority.